EVENTS

LSESU Atheist, Secularist and Humanist Society wins

A good outcome. Not the best outcome, but a good one. LSE has ruled that its Student Union Atheist, Secularist and Humanist Society does not have to remove any Jesus and Mo cartoons from its Facebook page, nor does it have to remove the prefix LSESU from its name. It has also ruled that the crappy things the LSESU said about LSESU ASH were crappy things to say (or rather, in bureaucratic language, that they were inappropriate).

LSESU ASH President Chris Moos made a statement on behalf of the Society’s committee, saying, ‘We wish that LSESU could have engaged with us originally in order to resolve the situation when it arose and remain disappointed that they have not apologised for their unjustified defamatory remarks against us. However, we are very pleased that no action is being taken to interfere with our right to free expression, nor to remain a society clearly affiliated with our university. The cartoons on our Facebook page criticised religion in a satirical way and we continue to reject any claim that their publications could constitute any sort of harassment or intimidation of Muslims or Christians. ‘

Andrew Copson, BHA Chief Executive, said, ‘It is good that free speech has not been curtailed at the end of this saga, but it is a great shame that non-religious students were let down by their union in this way. The conflation of offence with intimidation, which allowed this situation to escalate as it did, is totally out of place in a university, where the challenging of deeply held believe should be a routine activity.’

Comments

Oh for fuck’s sake. If you have an acronym in an article that people cannot be assumed to be familiar with (as in this case), spell it out. London School of Economics is not going to wear your fingers out.

The cartoons on our Facebook page criticised religion in a satirical way and we continue to reject any claim that their publications could constitute any sort of harassment or intimidation of Muslims or Christians.

Trackbacks

[…] It’s hard to say what’s worse about this SU: their gutlessness or their grammar. Remember, they’re the ones who’ve made it a campus crime to be mean about the Qur’an, and who accused this same society of ‘racism and discrimination’ when they shared cartoons from Jesus and Mo on their Facebook page, taking disciplinary measures which have only just – breathe out – been written off. […]